AUSTRALIAN PROBLEMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21360, 13 June 1931, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN PROBLEMS

" The Australian Economy ; Simple Economic Studies." By D. B. Copland, M.A., D.Sc. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. (2s 6d net.) “ The Delusion of Protection: a Plea for Tariff Reform.” By George H. Winder and Cluny MacPherson, B.A. Introduction by Senator the Bon. Sir Hal Colebatch. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. (4s 6d net.) "Budget Control: an Introduction to the Financial System of New South Wales." By F. A. Bland, M.A., Ll.B. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. (3s Gd net.)

If,there is a service that a period of economic depression can do for a country, it is to encourage, even 1 to force, the average, uninformed citizen to take some intelligent interest in the mariner in which his country is governed and, particularly, the way in which carelessness of, or misunderstanding of, economic and financial principles may affect him personally, as a taxpayer, business man, labourer, office worker, or farmer. In Australia there is very evidently a quickening of interest in the affairs of the Commonwealth, particularly economic, for. the man-in-the-street wishes to .know how things have come to a state that affetts him personally, and makes a drain on his own pocket. The evidence of this new seeking after understanding is in the number of books that have recently been issued relating to various aspects of financial life in Australia, to which three additions have been made by Messrs Angus and Robertson. The purpose of “ The Australian Economy,” of Dr Copland, dean of the Faculty of Commerce in the University of Melbourne and chairman of the Economic Committee which has been advising the Premiers’ Conference, is to provide students of the Australian problem with the main facts and the'elementary arguments for an understanding of the causes of the depression, and to explain how inflatforf develops through the piling up of Government deficits. Dr Copland gives a grave warning that with the growth of Government deficits and the increasing degree to which they have been financed in recent months by the issue of Treasury bills, there is a danger that credit may be expanded beyond the reqriirements of the situation, when uncontrollable inflation would follow. He states that the present size and prospective size of the floating debt of the Australian Governments (£55.500,000 in February of : this year) is the greatest menace to Australian finance.. While it is growing inflation is proceeding, and the degree of relief that can be procured from such a method' of finance depends upon the firmness with which economies • are .made by the Governments —the alternative is continued and increasing inflation. •J’

In “ The ( Delusion of Protection ” Messrs MacPh'erson and Winder (founder of the New Zealand Tariff Association), make a closely reasoned attack upon the Commonwealth’s Customs tariff and the Protectiohist theories underlying it. They claim that if the tariff remains unaltered it will cause the permanent collapse of Australian standards of living. If the fact had been faced, they state, that the depression resultant upon a cessation of borrowing abroad and the fall of national income by £32.000,000 on wool and wheat prices, was'a “bad deal” that occasionally falls to the lot of the trader, and that control of the laws of supply apd demand is beyond legislative interference, all would have been well. Action was taken, however, by increasing the tariff, and they seek to demohstrate that /in extension of the tariff was not only faulty economy, but likely to prove disastrous. Mr Bland’s “ Budget Control ” is a close examination of . the way in which the.costs of government have mounted in recent years, and an explanation of the principles of Australian finance, particularly as they differ from English methods. Besides explaining the machinery of the financial system - and throwing into relief the methods by which it is worked, he suggests changes that he considers would make for constructive reform of demonstrable anomalies in Government finance in New South Wales. M‘G.